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A comment on Ask HN: Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a name-brand college?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a ... by rdr on Saturday June 06, 2009 @09:56PM (#645409)
all of these name-brand colleges are private, so if the state has a role in all of this, it's quite indirect, right? of course the government has a role in accredidation, grants, laws, etc., but it's hard to imagine eliminating those ... sorry, i don't want to get into a debate on libertarianism ;)
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Re:Ask HN: Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a ... by johnnybgoode on Saturday June 06, 2009 @10:06PM (#645421)
Well, they are private in name only. They are massively funded by the state, both directly and indirectly through exclusive student funding grants. The degrees they grant have the same special status as those granted by "public" schools, and they are regulated the same way.

I don't think this is an exclusively libertarian issue. Your original question could be generalized to include all titles of nobility, and that seems relevant because one of the purposes of such titles is to make titleholders feel superior, thereby making others feel inferior. In other words, you don't have to be a libertarian to oppose titles of nobility.

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Re:Ask HN: Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a ... by wglb on Sunday June 07, 2009 @09:04AM (#645881)
Except for hillsdale college in Michigan which makes a point of taking zero government dollars for anything, including scholarships. Not huge, but truly private. http://www.hillsdale.edu/support/default.asp
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Re:Ask HN: Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a ... by johnnybgoode on Sunday June 07, 2009 @06:42PM (#646480)
That's laudable, but it looks like the college still has state-approved accreditation, so what I said still applies.
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Re:Ask HN: Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a ... by anigbrowl on Saturday June 06, 2009 @10:11PM (#645427)
I took 'brand name' to mean any college with an excellent reputation in its field, not just the private Ivy League colleges. A degree in physics from UC Berkeley (semi-public) is nothing to sneeze at, for example.
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